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Cythereal posted:I can't stand Weber's sci-fi, but I don't mind the Safehold books when things are actually happening in them. Which excludes the entirety of his latest book. The big naval battle near the end of Off Armageddon Reef was great stuff for showing just how horrifyingly outmatched galleys are against cannon-armed galleons. Yeah I'm not sure they really qualify for this thread but they're a lot better than the Harrington stuff. I'm sure part of it is that he's got more experience writing now. And seconded that the big naval battles are pretty horrifying. The last coupe books have felt a bit bogged down with lots of sitting around talking politics, but I really want to see where they go with Ghost in the Machine Nahrman and android-double Nimue.
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May 8, 2015 20:51
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chrisoya posted:Which was the one where a battle was interrupted by a lengthy digression on some advanced new technology which would have saved the day except it was so new none of the ships had it and it was completely irrelevant? That was possibly peak Weber, unless peak Weber was one of the ones where they fired hundreds of missiles in a single broadside, or upgraded their ships to be able to launch more missiles in a broadside, or had a new type of missile. I remember posting about that. was it in this thread? I skimmed the e-arc out of curiosity and then wished I hadn't. e: yes. http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3149277&pagenumber=9&perpage=40#post378637923 click this link and despair! I think it's important to note that if I remember right, the entire quoted digression was at the potential start of a shooting war with a galactic superpower that literally every other galactic power or polity knows bone-deep that it's a superpower they never wants to gently caress with because they are that big and that reputable. (it turns out of course that this superpower is actually a paper tiger and that Our Heroes are better and ugh let's not get into it) -- but way to ruin any sense of dramatic pacing. Like for an event hyped up as the ultimate crossing of the Rubicon it went over like a wet fart. Also the Safehold books started okay since Tor actually edited and the pacing of the first book was slow but not glacial. The latest books are getting worse and worse in terms of stuff like "months per page" and "total months per book" and so on. They could easily be cut in half and lose nothing. Psion fucked around with this message at 00:21 on May 9, 2015 |
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May 9, 2015 00:14
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Washout posted:His stuff is dreck even where pulp is concerned, in like the 3rd book she get kidnapped, has stockholm syndrome with her rapist and then switches sides. I think I threw the books away when that happened. There is a ton of pulp out there that is well written. I think you or someone else said this earlier in the thread, but the post was old enough I didn't bother replying to it. I'm glad you've brought it up again though because now I can ask: What on earth are you talking about? Honor never gets raped or switches sides. I think you have HH confused with some other series. I quite like the HH series, there's lots of wars and battles/warfighting technology are described in detail, it's kind of like a novelized 4x game. The characters aren't great and the politics can be pretty dumb, so don't read them unless you like reading about how technological breakthroughs affect fictional missile performance, but if that appeals Weber delivers. I could do with less baseball or religion chat though. Darkrenown fucked around with this message at 13:50 on May 11, 2015 |
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May 11, 2015 13:18
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Darkrenown posted:I could do with less baseball or religion chat though. But sometimes religious figures playing baseball makes for really good science fiction.  I'll keep giving it a chance. There was another mil-sci ebook series I saw on the Kindle store and was thinking about trying out since it's stupidly popular, but I can't remember the exact name of it. Something about Odyssey or something?
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May 11, 2015 13:56
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Drone posted:
I'm not familiar with Odyssey. Could it have been the Troy Rising series by John Ringo? That's at least a Homeric name.
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May 11, 2015 18:01
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The first three or four Honor Harrington novels are definitely the weakest, because they focus on her and she's certainly a terrible character. Once the wars get into full swing, we get other Captains and Admirals and there's just more going on. But you'll still either love it or hate it.
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May 11, 2015 18:14
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Drakhoran posted:I'm not familiar with Odyssey. Could it have been the Troy Rising series by John Ringo? That's at least a Homeric name. Odyssey One by Evan Currie? Not bad for something that started self-published. Unlikely adventures abound in an unrealistic future, with slightly better storytelling than most self-published stuff.
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May 11, 2015 18:27
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FuturePastNow posted:The first three or four Honor Harrington novels are definitely the weakest, because they focus on her and she's certainly a terrible character. Once the wars get into full swing, we get other Captains and Admirals and there's just more going on. But you'll still either love it or hate it. I thought the first four were the strongest because it seemed conceivable that she could face actual threats. The relatively small engagements allowed the reader to understand the action as ships and characters interacting with each other, rather than as a reckoning of statistical abstractions. And Weber hadn't pumped enough words into his infodump boner to really get going on the twenty-page digressions.
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May 11, 2015 19:26
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Drakhoran posted:I'm not familiar with Odyssey. Could it have been the Troy Rising series by John Ringo? That's at least a Homeric name. The Troy Rising books are legit 'modern military space opera' (?) books, I loving love the absurdness of a 10-kilometer diameter asteroid battle station with a doomlaser powered by the sun and if that spoiler doesn't get you even a little hyped there's something wrong with you. Ringo even manages to avoid most of his creepy habits (the one exception being the alien retrovirus that makes blondes perpetually horny). That's... pretty bad but it's the only 'Ringo-ism' I spotted in those books. The rest is straight-up old-school 'big sci-fi' and/or "this is how Space
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May 11, 2015 19:34
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FuturePastNow posted:Yeah, it's pretty clear Weber just plain stopped caring around 2005 or so. Not quite. Sometime in the early aughts he signed a new contract - lots of cash, lots of freedom to write, but also a lot of books to deliver. No problem, it still fit within his usual schedule. Then he fell off his back porch and broke both his wrists He found a solution in using a voice-to-text writing software, Dragon Naturally Speaking. Now it let him hit his deadlines, and in fact increase his output, because people can talk faster than they can write. But it also makes it really easy to start to ramble, is really hard to make corrections, and is very difficult when it comes to editing and rewrites.
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May 11, 2015 20:17
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Miss-Bomarc posted:Jack McDevitt's The Engines of God is sort-of like that. There's these weird monuments found on many planets, clearly created artifacts, and yet each one is found near the ruins of a destroyed civilization. Is there some strange force going through the galaxy smashing intelligent life? There are several entries in the series, including a couple of side stories set in the same world. You can't tease a stupid ending and not share it!
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May 11, 2015 20:25
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Fried Chicken posted:You can't tease a stupid ending and not share it! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Engines_of_God#Plot
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May 11, 2015 20:27
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WarLocke posted:The Troy Rising books are legit 'modern military space opera' (?) books, I loving love the absurdness of a 10-kilometer diameter asteroid battle station with a doomlaser powered by the sun and if that spoiler doesn't get you even a little hyped there's something wrong with you. Eh I couldn't get past the first hundred or so pages. Where our Said plan involving cornering the World supply of maple syrup (It's a drug to powerful aliens), by cornering the American maple syrup crop. Why no the existence of Canada is not mentioned in any way, why do you ask? Deptfordx fucked around with this message at 21:11 on May 11, 2015 |
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May 11, 2015 21:08
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WarLocke posted:Ringo even manages to avoid most of his creepy habits (the one exception being the alien retrovirus that makes blondes perpetually horny). Hahaha. That's ridiculous. I need to hear more about this.
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May 11, 2015 21:13
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Which one is the Ringo book where the space ship is a giant naked woman that bleeds when it takes damage?
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May 11, 2015 21:16
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That's uh interesting, but those things are completely neutered by Art Deco, if I read this right. Also I think I found several major inconsistencies just by reading through the summaries of those books. Wow, that's kind of bad I think. 
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May 11, 2015 21:19
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Chairman Capone posted:Hahaha. That's ridiculous. I need to hear more about this. Dickish aliens hold the world hostage for a while, but they get a lot of passive resistance and so eventually decide to wipe out 99% of the population using genetically tailored viruses and have their chosen survivors repopulate it. Germans and/or South Africans appeased them the most so they choose white blonds as the "best" humans. They want the population to regrow quickly so one virus affects the DNA of blonde women to go into a heat cycle every month and for hormonal contraceptives not to work on them. The "kill everyone" virus is found and cured before too many die, but the "horny blondes" DNA change couldn't be reverted. Fried Chicken posted:Which one is the Ringo book where the space ship is a giant naked woman that bleeds when it takes damage? I don't remember it bleeding, but there was a naked woman ship in one of the Posleen followup books (where the pope wants to convert the the aliens so he sends an alcoholic priest who is boning the bionic avatar of the ship). Her boobs fire lasers and fighters dock in her vagina. Darkrenown fucked around with this message at 21:51 on May 11, 2015 |
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May 11, 2015 21:48
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Chairman Capone posted:Hahaha. That's ridiculous. I need to hear more about this. Like i say i gave up on it but from what i've heard. The aliens launch a biological attack. It is partly averted but not before a billion or so people die. The majority of the casualties are, this is going to shock you i know, of a how shall we put it 'swarthy' complexion. Not because of racism, oh no. It's just these peoples inferior culture that means they can't respond to the attack effectivly. Our Said future will include a hell of a lot of more white people as the virus (as part of some breeding a slave caste which doesn't make a great deal of sense) makes Blonde woman. 1) Go into heat once a month, from puberty onwards  2) Makes contraception useless 3) Super-orgasmic. I believe the phrase 'Oh John Ringo No' is traditional at this point. Deptfordx fucked around with this message at 21:56 on May 11, 2015 |
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May 11, 2015 21:52
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Deptfordx posted:Eh I couldn't get past the first hundred or so pages. The latter half of the first book (and both the second and third) are nothing like the first bit. Tyler Vernon becomes a background character and only makes token appearances. In fact the PoV character for the last two books is Dana somethingorother, a Marine shuttle pilot. And yeah, the Johanneson Worm thing is pretty drat bad. But compared to some of the other stuff Ringo has publishes it's rather tame in comparison. He makes a point to mention early in the second book that there's a fix for the virus, it's just (of course) expensive and has to be done tailor-made to the individual.
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May 11, 2015 22:01
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I am so glad I stopped reading Ringo when the dumbest things in his books were physicists randomly bitching about how global warming is a lie, and naming giant death tanks after webcomic characters.
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May 11, 2015 22:05
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I saw John Ringo give a talk at Dragoncon maybe ten years or so back, and all I remember is him talking about how much he swears and complaining that he didn't get as much attention from fans as the Star Wars authors at the convention did.
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May 11, 2015 23:10
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Actually that isn't complete, as I remember it. The ending I remember is that the mysterious clouds that roam the galaxy destroying civilizations are actually part of an intergalactic fireworks show put on by extremely long-lived aliens from the Magellanic Clouds. These aliens shoot the clouds into our galaxy and they zip around making very pretty light displays as they explode everything. The Monument Makers are artificial beings who built the monuments on purpose as triggers; the idea that there might be sentient life in our galaxy apparently never occured to the Magellanic aliens. After six-some books, the day is saved by simply throwing cubic objects into the death clouds until they dissipate.
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May 13, 2015 05:01
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Fried Chicken posted:Not quite. Sometime in the early aughts he signed a new contract - lots of cash, lots of freedom to write, but also a lot of books to deliver. No problem, it still fit within his usual schedule.  Of course.
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May 13, 2015 12:56
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Whoa. Those are some fat fuckin arms.
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May 13, 2015 16:41
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Darkrenown posted:I don't remember it bleeding, but there was a naked woman ship in one of the Posleen followup books (where the pope wants to convert the the aliens so he sends an alcoholic priest who is boning the bionic avatar of the ship). Her boobs fire lasers and fighters dock in her vagina. this is the most john ringo thing i have ever seen
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May 13, 2015 18:14
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DolphinCop posted:this is the most john ringo thing i have ever seen There's also the naval destroyer with a hologram AI avatar that likes to stand on the bow being all huge and I think he wrote a character looking up her holo-skirt for some reason.
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May 13, 2015 18:36
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WarLocke posted:There's also the naval destroyer with a hologram AI avatar that likes to stand on the bow being all huge and I think he wrote a character looking up her holo-skirt for some reason. I didn't know he was also writing anime now.
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May 13, 2015 18:54
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Kesper North posted:I didn't know he was also writing anime now. The last book of the Looking Glass series has a literal 'Anime Zone' bit when the magic FTL drive artifact interacts with the force field around the macguffin space station that siphons the energy from an entire star to flouresce the ordbiting gas giants as a sort of cosmic rock stage complete with a joke about how the PoV character becomes a ridiculous buff dude with gel-winged hair and a huge sword while in the Anime Zone and then they defeat an enemy armada by having the hot super-intelligent linguist (who's Anime Zone form is a big-eyed schoolgirl) sing rock and roll/j-pop to create magic-tech avatars in space that tear up spaceships. It's pretty much the most loving ridiculous anime thing ever.
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May 13, 2015 20:48
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WarLocke posted:The last book of the Looking Glass series has a literal 'Anime Zone' bit when the magic FTL drive artifact interacts with the force field around the macguffin space station that siphons the energy from an entire star to flouresce the ordbiting gas giants as a sort of cosmic rock stage complete with a joke about how the PoV character becomes a ridiculous buff dude with gel-winged hair and a huge sword while in the Anime Zone and then they defeat an enemy armada by having the hot super-intelligent linguist (who's Anime Zone form is a big-eyed schoolgirl) sing rock and roll/j-pop to create magic-tech avatars in space that tear up spaceships. Oh, John Ringo, no.
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May 13, 2015 20:55
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As I recall, his first book involved power armor guys doing some kind of viltron thing and rising out of the sea to Led Zeppelin's The Immigrant Song and slaughtering irrelevant cardboard stormtroopers as a power ballad for how Totally Awesome his Mary Sue was.
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May 13, 2015 21:19
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WarLocke posted:There's also the naval destroyer with a hologram AI avatar that likes to stand on the bow being all huge and I think he wrote a character looking up her holo-skirt for some reason. Pretty sure he takes the time to mention she's got no holo-panties too 
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May 13, 2015 21:38
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Fried Chicken posted:As I recall, his first book involved power armor guys doing some kind of viltron thing and rising out of the sea to Led Zeppelin's The Immigrant Song and slaughtering irrelevant cardboard stormtroopers as a power ballad for how Totally Awesome his Mary Sue was. He loves that music poo poo so much. I think at one point a character comments how great Evanenesence is.
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May 13, 2015 23:27
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ArchangeI posted:He loves that music poo poo so much. I think at one point a character comments how great Evanenesence is. He writes like a sex-crazed ten year old with a rape fetish. Also we've obviously all read at least one of his books 
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May 13, 2015 23:44
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I started watching Babylon 5 again and that put me in the mood for some Space Opera, preferably focused on politics. I know that is not exactly the most popular subject, so it doesn't have to be just that, but I am generally not really all that into military fan wank. I once tried to read Honor Harrington and was pretty bored about half way through. So, is there any series that focuses more on interstellar politics than warfare?
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May 14, 2015 00:12
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e X posted:I started watching Babylon 5 again and that put me in the mood for some Space Opera, preferably focused on politics. I know that is not exactly the most popular subject, so it doesn't have to be just that, but I am generally not really all that into military fan wank. I once tried to read Honor Harrington and was pretty bored about half way through. So, is there any series that focuses more on interstellar politics than warfare? Not a book, but you should watch Legend of Galactic Heroes. http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=1278668 Yes, it is an anime. But it's based on a book series (that I don't think is translated?) and is superb. It is one of the best Scifi series ever (yep, it's better than Babylon 5) and is extremely political.
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May 14, 2015 00:28
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Kesper North posted:He writes like a sex-crazed ten year old with a rape fetish. I like to think he marks the lower border of what is acceptably trashy pulp sci-fi. Below him are the likes of Kratman. I also second Legend of the Galactic Heroes, it is really good. The animation quality is pretty dated, but other than that it could be described as Game of Space Thrones in terms of plot. Lots of intrigue, coups, revolutions, revolutionary coups, revolutionary counter-coups. The occasional space battle that is mostly "okay now send ten thousand battleships to the left flank and break through the enemy's fleet!" rather than endless sperging over the difficulties of point defence lasers have trying to destroy the new HVTAM (Hyper-Velocity Terminal Assault Missile) of the enemy. It also helps that it avoids all the things modern anime is infamous for.
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May 14, 2015 00:43
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e X posted:I started watching Babylon 5 again and that put me in the mood for some Space Opera, preferably focused on politics. I know that is not exactly the most popular subject, so it doesn't have to be just that, but I am generally not really all that into military fan wank. I once tried to read Honor Harrington and was pretty bored about half way through. So, is there any series that focuses more on interstellar politics than warfare? Bujold's Vorkosigan series has a pretty good amount of this and is great.
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May 14, 2015 02:07
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e X posted:I started watching Babylon 5 again and that put me in the mood for some Space Opera, preferably focused on politics. I know that is not exactly the most popular subject, so it doesn't have to be just that, but I am generally not really all that into military fan wank. I once tried to read Honor Harrington and was pretty bored about half way through. So, is there any series that focuses more on interstellar politics than warfare? Singularity Sky and Iron Sunrise by Charles Stross. He also did Neptune's Brood which is kinda political, in as much as it involves galactic finance and the social system it creates and money, power, and systems of organization are tightly related. Neptune's Brood follows (5000 years later) from Saturn's Children which is kinda political (spies between factions, factions trying to get their hands on ancient evil in a can, WMDs, and speculation about tyranosaurs wearing football helmets) but is more about a woman discovering her own empowerment. Schizimatrix Plus by Bruce Sterling is heavy on the politics as its about power plays between two factions. Also the bright star that kicked off New Space Opera in the 90s and fresh for the kindle. Fractions and Divisions by Ken MacLeod combined his Fall Revolution series into two volumes; while not about political factions squaring off and trying to out manuver each other, each is a study of a type of anarchism when it meets the singularity (and tools around the solar system), they are right-libertarianism, anarcho-syndicalism, left-libertarian, and deep green anarchism in that order Player of Games and Use of Weapons by Ian M Banks involve the dirty tricks branch of the intelligence arm of a utopian society trying to hew to both the ideals of the utopia and defend it at the same time. Kaleidoscope Century by John Barnes is a deeply unpleasant book, as about 50 pages in you get it dropped on you the protagonist is a god damned psychopath - he's basically a soldier of an evil empire drummed out of the evil army for war crimes they deemed horrific, if you want some context for "god damned psychopath". It's also a major work and very nearly a masterpiece. Anyways, plot gets political in that there are a bunch of factions striving to control earth through propaganda and "memetic warfare" (done well) while time travel is being developed at the edge of the solar system. And then things get weird. Those are the ones I can think of that try and give politics some heft, feature diplomacy as a driving force rather than other means, are space opera, and aren't "Oh yeah dude, the author's views of The Way Things Should Be turn out to be totally right, anyone who disagrees is evil, stupid, or both". EDIT: If you are willing to drop the "space opera" part there is the Merchant Princes books which are all about political conflict - 6 factions from a germanic type Kingdom of Saud from not-Narnia, 3 from the US government during the Bush years, and 2 from a different not-Narnia. Plot involves developmental economics, the war on drugs, nukes, the surveillance state, feminism, and courtly politics; plot framework is taking an inverted "the dark lord returns to destroy the kingdom" and "peasant child from a far off land with a magical destiny", take all those things and blend until smooth. Fried Chicken fucked around with this message at 02:27 on May 14, 2015 |
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May 14, 2015 02:10
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Kesper North posted:He writes like a sex-crazed ten year old with a rape fetish. As near as I can tell, Ringo writes porn, but without the character arcs. I read 4 of his; the first 3 of his Polseen books and the one he did with Kratman praising Hitler; I don't think I've picked up a Baen book since.
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May 14, 2015 02:29
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I think you're thinking of Watch on the Rhine? I don't recall any Hitler praising, although of course bringing back the SS is...iffy. For those that haven't read it, aliens are invading and Earth is about to be hosed, but "nice" aliens give us technology to rejuvenate people so everyone rejuvs their veterans, which includes former SS in Germany's case. I like Ringo for the most part, again for his combat. The rape stuff in Ghost is pretty terrible, but there's nothing objectionable in, say, the Prince Rodger series. And the Posleen (unless you count the semi spin off Watch on the Rhine) or Portals books have nothing worse than cheesy/weird/awesome sections like the powermetal battles or anime zone section.
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May 14, 2015 11:19
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